New York, June 30, 2000–The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) applauds Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court ruling today that the government’s system of news censorship is illegal, and that the decisions of the chief censor therefore have no force in law. A unanimous three-judge panel delivered the verdict in response to a petition brought by the…
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka June 15 — Harsh press censorship in Sri Lanka is increasingly counterproductive, senior government officials told a delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) this week, and the government pledged to end the restrictions by mid-August when parliamentary elections are called. Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera told CPJ during a private meeting…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) welcomes your government’s decision to lift the prior censorship requirement for foreign media, but is deeply disturbed that the censorship regulations remain in place and that restrictions on local media continue.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is profoundly dismayed by your government’s use of censorship regulations to restrict coverage of the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). We are particularly alarmed by the recent decision of the chief censor, Ariya Rubasinghe, to shut down the Tamil-language daily Uthayan and the English-language weekly The Sunday Leader.
Your Excellency: CPJ is gravely concerned by your government’s further tightening of censorship restrictions governing coverage of the civil war between the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The recent regulations are the most draconian ever imposed on the media in Sri Lanka, according to local journalists.
Click here to read more about press freedom conditions in SRI LANKA. New York, April 4, 2000 — Shortly before midnight on April 3, an explosive device was detonated at the home of Nellai G. Nadesan, a columnist for Veerakesari, the country’s leading Tamil-language newspaper. Nadesan was not injured in the blast, though the explosion…
By Kavita Menon and A. Lin NeumannMuch of Asia remained hostile to a free, independent media, despite the growing consensus that Asian political and economic stability depends in great measure on governments’ willingness to improve transparency and lift restrictions on the press. In China, Burma, Vietnam, and even Malaysia, government suppression of the media is…
[Click here for full list of documented cases] At its most fundamental level, the job of a journalist is to bear witness. In 1999, journalists in Sierra Leone witnessed rebels’ atrocities against civilians in the streets of Freetown. In the Balkans, journalists watched ethnic Albanians fleeing the deadly menace of Serbian police and paramilitaries. In…
Sri Lanka’s increasingly violent political climate has heightened the danger for the country’s journalists. The 16-year-old civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a guerrilla movement fighting for a separate homeland for the country’s ethnic Tamil minority, continued, and has so far claimed more than 61,000 lives.…
Dear Mr. Kamalasabeyson: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is greatly concerned by the lack of progress in the case involving Iqbal Athas, defense columnist for The Sunday Times, and his alleged harassment by two Air Force officers, who have been indicted for criminal intimidation of Mr. Athas, criminal trespass and unlawful entry into the journalist’s home on February 12, 1998.